Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by fionnualalirsdottir
Plays and Petersburg Tales: Petersburg Tales; Marriage; The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol
I have never set foot in Saint Petersburg.
I've never walked the long avenue called Nevsky Prospect or visited Senate Square or stood on the embankment gazing across the Neva to Vasilievsky Island.
But I see those places in my mind's eye just as if I had been there.
I know that the sky line of Vasilievsky Island is marked by the spire of the Peter and Paul fortress.
I know that there's a huge bronze statue on Senate Square, and that there's a Scissors shop on Nevsky Prospect.
Well, perhaps there's no longer a Scissors shop on Nevsky Prospect.
You see, the city that exists in my mind is not the city of today.
My Petersburg is the city of Pushkin's Bronze Horseman, leaping from his plinth on Senate Square and racing through the nearby streets.
It's the city of Gogol's Piskaryov, haunted by a girl he spies near the Scissors shop on Nevsky Prospect.
It's the city of Nabokov's giant pencils and of Tolstoy's drunken bears tumbling into the Neva.
It's the city of Dostoyevsky's axe murderer, of Gogol's razor-wielding barber, of Bely's scissors-happy assassin.
It's the city where a Nose can parade in uniform, where a ghost steals people's overcoats, where people have names like Pancake, Dustbin, Sloshkin and Rottenov.
A city where dogs not only talk to each other but write letters too. A city where January comes after February and where April has 43 days and Marchember have 86.
My Petersburg is an utterly phantasmagoric place. I love it!
I've never walked the long avenue called Nevsky Prospect or visited Senate Square or stood on the embankment gazing across the Neva to Vasilievsky Island.
But I see those places in my mind's eye just as if I had been there.
I know that the sky line of Vasilievsky Island is marked by the spire of the Peter and Paul fortress.
I know that there's a huge bronze statue on Senate Square, and that there's a Scissors shop on Nevsky Prospect.
Well, perhaps there's no longer a Scissors shop on Nevsky Prospect.
You see, the city that exists in my mind is not the city of today.
My Petersburg is the city of Pushkin's Bronze Horseman, leaping from his plinth on Senate Square and racing through the nearby streets.
It's the city of Gogol's Piskaryov, haunted by a girl he spies near the Scissors shop on Nevsky Prospect.
It's the city of Nabokov's giant pencils and of Tolstoy's drunken bears tumbling into the Neva.
It's the city of Dostoyevsky's axe murderer, of Gogol's razor-wielding barber, of Bely's scissors-happy assassin.
It's the city where a Nose can parade in uniform, where a ghost steals people's overcoats, where people have names like Pancake, Dustbin, Sloshkin and Rottenov.
A city where dogs not only talk to each other but write letters too. A city where January comes after February and where April has 43 days and Marchember have 86.
My Petersburg is an utterly phantasmagoric place. I love it!